DAVIS – Amid laughing, joking, wearing clown noses and just having fun, Patch Adams and a dozen of his clown friends visited the area to help with some serious work – helping to restore the local red spruce tree ecosystem. The group spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday helping with the project.
Dawn Washington, wildlife biologist at the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, said there used to be a million acres of spruce in West Virginia.
“We are down to 50,000,” Washington said. “Many organizations are working to bring the spruce back. We have had tree plantings for the last 12 years to speed up bringing the spruce back.”
Washington said at the Refuge, they try to plant up to 10,000 spruce trees each year.
“Spring and fall is when we plant,” Washington said. “We are restoring the spruce for several reasons beside to help the flying squirrel. The squirrel is one part of it, but another is the Cheat Mountain Salamander.”
She said the Cheat Mountain Salamander is worse off than the squirrels.
“Right now, it is only found in five West Virginia counties,” Washington said. “You don’t find them below 3,800 feet in elevation. They like the cool, shady spruce forests. They are threatened, federally.”
Washington said they are also planting spruce to create corridors.
“When folks did log and farm, they went right up to the river,” Washington said. “We are putting in a buffer strip, and we have a goal of having a shadier area for the brook trout and for the squirrels.
“The squirrels eat a truffle that grows beneath the spruce tree and they are dependent on that truffle,” Washington said. “They also need yellow birch for their nests.”
Washington said all of the tree plantings are completed by volunteers.
“We do not have the staff, so we rely of people to come and help us with planting,” she said. “This weekend, we have students from West Virginia University and Davis & Elkins College coming to do plantings. They have been coming to help for the past 12 years.”
The Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge collected red spruce cones and harvested the seeds to grow the red spruce seedlings. Washington said the group partnered with the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy to get red spruce trees.
Adams said he and his group volunteered because they care about the world around them.
“I have 4,000 nature books and 2,000 books on the environment, so I might have a slight interest on the subject,” Adams said. “I take 12 nature magazines and among them is the Nature Conservancy. I read about this and I traveled 300 days a year for 30 years giving lectures and shows and I am indoors. I want to get outdoors and I felt the need to do something for nature.”
Adams said nothing he studies will survive this century.
“I would live in nature if I was not a political activist,” Adams said jokingly.